Elric_ The Stealer of Souls - Michael Moorcock [154]
“If you wish it.”
She walked back into the small chamber which joined the main one.
CHAPTER THREE
“We talk only of defeat!” roared Kargan of the Purple Towns, beating upon the table with his fist. His beard seemed to bristle with rage.
Dawn had found all but a few of the captains retiring through weariness. Kargan, Moonglum, Elric’s cousin Dyvim Slorm and moon-faced Dralab of Tarkesh, remained in the chamber, pondering tactics.
Elric answered him calmly: “We talk of defeat, Kargan, because we must be prepared for that eventuality. It seems likely, does it not? We must, if defeat seems imminent, flee our enemies, conserving our force for another attack on Jagreen Lern. We shall not have the forces to fight another major battle, so we must use our better knowledge of currents, winds and terrain to fight him from ambush on sea or land. Thus we can perhaps demoralize his warriors and take considerably more of them than they can of us.”
“Aye—I see the logic,” Kargan rumbled unwillingly, evidently disturbed by this talk for, if the major battle was lost, then lost also would be the Isle of the Purple Towns, bastion against Chaos for the mainland nations of Vilmir and Ilmiora.
Moonglum shifted his position, grunting slightly. “And if they drive us back, then back we must go, bending rather than breaking, and returning from other directions to attack and confuse them. It’s in my mind that we’ll have to move more rapidly than we’ll be able to, since we’d be tired and with few provisions…” He grinned faintly. “Ah, forgive me for my pessimism. Ill-placed, I fear.”
“No,” Elric said. “We must face all this or be caught unawares. You are right. And to allow for ordered retreat, I have already sent detachments to the Sighing Desert and the Weeping Waste to bury large quantities of food and such things as extra arrows, lances and so forth. If we are forced back as far as the barrens, we’ll likely fare better than Jagreen Lern, assuming that it takes him time to extend the area of Chaos and that his allies from the Higher Worlds are not overwhelmingly powerful.”
“You spoke of realism…” said Dyvim Slorm, pursing his curving lips and raising a slanting eyebrow.
“Aye—but some things cannot be faced or considered—for if we are totally engulfed by Chaos at the outset, then we’ll have no need of plans. So we plan for the other eventuality, you see.”
Kargan let out his breath and rose from the table. “There’s no more to discuss,” he said. “I’ll to bed. We must be ready to sail with the noon tide tomorrow.”
They all gave signs of assent and chairs scraped as they pushed them back and left the chamber.
Bereft of human occupants, the chamber was silent save for the sputtering of the lamps and the rustle of the maps and papers as they were stirred by a warm wind.
It was late in the morning when Elric arose and found Zarozinia already up and dressed in a skirt and bodice of cloth-of-gold with a long, black-trimmed cloak of silver spreading to the floor.
He washed, shaved and ate the dish of herb-flavoured fruit she handed him.
“Why have you arrayed yourself in such finery?” he asked.
“To bid you goodbye from the harbour,” she said.
“If you spoke truth last night, then you’d best be dressed in funeral red,” he smiled and then, relenting, clasped her to him. He gripped her tightly, desperately, before standing back from her and taking her chin in his hand raised her face to stare down into it. “In these tragic times,” he said, “there’s little room for love-play and kind words. Love must be deep and strong, manifesting itself in our actions. Seek no courtly words from me, Zarozinia, but remember earlier nights when the only turbulence was our pulse-beats blending.”
He was clad, himself, in Melnibonéan war regalia; with a breastplate of shiny black metal, a high-collared jerkin of black velvet, black leather breeks covered to the knee by his boots, also of black leather. Over